OK, so he wasn't a baron and the damsel in distress is really me, not some princess in a castle...however, I did escape the clutches of an Austrian so thought the title a bit fitting. As you may have already read, I was traveling with an Austrian gentleman (or not so much of a gentleman) for the first part of my trip. A few days in, it became quite clear that his intentions were not exactly the same as my intentions. Seems that I still have that ole freak magnet charm...sigh...So, after a few days in Udaipur, I decided to subtly - or not so subtly - stage my escape. I simply booked an early morning bus to Mt. Abu and failed to pass the message on to the clingy, freaky Austrian boy. As luck would have it, once he found out my bus time and tried to book the same, there were no more seats. Thus, happy little me sighed with relief and thought that my little hint would be enough and he would continue on somewhere else. Well apparently the not so subtle hint was not taken and gee, gosh, there was a 3:00 bus up to Mt. Abu so he would, after all, be joining me later in the day (the escape part comes later)
The bus was just about as close to hell as you could get - from the 1950s with open windows, a road that was being worked on, too many people and luggage in the aisles. The company was fun though (two Austrian girls, a Dutch guy and another American) so we sucked it up and bounced along joking, coughing and otherwise trying to make ourselves somewhat comfortable. When we arrived our faces were a couple shades darker and our clothes tinged with light brown. It took about 10 washings to get the water only slightly brown and well, that is liveable here. Mt Abu was a very pleasant mountain retreat and actually an Indian holiday place, not a tourist place. It was fun to see that rather than all of the other white tourists. Although, I think I have made it in Bollywood as at every corner someone wants to take my pitcure with them...funny, I think I should start asking them for money since they ask me whenever I want to take a picture of them. Think I could travel my way through India that way - or at least cover half of my expenses. The hostel was really pleasant and it had a nice group of other travelers. We did a hike about the mountains and down to Delwara temple, probaly the most intricate temple I will see along the way. The marble carvers were apparently paid for the amount of dust they created and thus every edge of the temple has some sort of carving - even the ceilings were so intricately carved they should have been on a wall. Unfortunately, we could not bring in our cameras so I don't have any pictures to show for it.
A couple of days there, and then I made my escape. Paul, the other American, was heading to a place called Pushkar. Not originally on my list but lots of people said it was nice so I opted to skip Jodhpur and Jaisalmer and head straight to Pushkar with Paul. Snuck away early one morning before breakfast, booked the ticket, and, ahhh, free and clear! This time for real as the Austrian wanted to head to Jaisalmer. The bus ride down was not much better than the bus ride up. While we were shown a lovely picture of a semi-sleeper coach with somewhat comfy looing chairs, we were actually given another 1950's bus with metal seats (there was a little cushion) and absolutely no leg room or anywhere. At one point during the 10+ hour ride I found myself with my head in the crack of the seat and my legs curled up against me with my feet pushing on the back of the chair in front of me. Not really sure how I got here, but apparently it was more comfotable than the previous position. At about 4:30am we stopped a rest stop with blairing Indian music. Basically this is a Chai stop. Everyone gets out, gets a Chai, stands around for a bit and tries to wake up in the hazy morning (mostly dust haze) then boards the bus for the remaining 1/2 hour. As you can imagine, the bathrooms are just lovely in these places and this is really when I wish I was back in Africa and could just run off to a bush.
AFter being dropped the middle of nowhere at about 5:30am, Paul and I tried, without much energy, to fend off the many rickshaw drivers wanting to take us the rest of the way into Pushkar for 600 rupees. It really does sound tempting at that hour given that we still had to figure out how to get o the local bus and then on to Pushkar. A couple of Spanish girls, who had arrived about 10 minutes earlier, saved the day and helped to negotiate the rickshaw down to 100 to the bus stop. From there, we again fended off more rickshaw drivers who swore the bus did not go from where we were standing or did not go at all until 8:00 am (it was 6:00am). The bus did go (all rickshaw drivers are liars) and we jumped on that. Our next feat was to find a hotel, which we did manage after checking with about 8 others. It was a big of a tough morning but he city was small so we didn't have to drag our things too terribly far. The most annoying thing was the hotel owners from hotels that we did not want to stay in following us around and trying to drag us back to their place.
Once the bags were dropped, we headed off to a breakfast to watch the sun continue to rise over the city. It is a lovely (small) city with a little lake. All of the people were down at the ghats (waterside places to wash) washing and starting their day. It is amazing the riot of colors along the clear water edge (yes, it was actually a clear lake) as all of the India people bath. Their sarees are so incredibly gorgeous, especially in the early morning light agains the white steps of the ghats. Other than that, Pushkar, while supposedly a holy place, was mostly full of touristy shops, tourists and loads of hippies. People seemed to get stuck there for weeks at a time and I am really not sure how as three days was quite enough for me. Guess it might be the Bhang Lassies that everyone is drinking. Bhang Lassies are the Lassies (yogurt drinks, often fruit) made with hash. I would, however, recommended the many falafel stands on the side of the road and the nan wrap that they were making. Food was good and it was pretty quiet (could even hear crickets at night) so we stayed a few days before heading on to face big, bad Jaipur - the pink city, which is where I am currently.
I think I have learned a few things in the past couple of weeks, the most important of which is that bus rides are much worse than the train, especially when they are night buses. Oh, and again, the sleep sheet is the best thing ever!
Next up: Taj Mahal
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